Хал Эллсон - Masters of Noir - Volume 3

“What gun?”

“The gun right there.” She pointed at it, on the floor.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “If you and the guy collided in the hall, what’s the gun doing here?”

“Well, when I looked in here, and I saw her, like that, I went to her, saw she was dead. Then I went back into the hall for the gun. I remembered about not touching things... fingerprints. I kicked it... with my foot... kicked it along until I worked it into the apartment.”

“Good enough. Now, what did the guy look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“Honey, you just told me you collided with him, out there in the hallway. You must have seen what he looked like.”

“No. Remember I was coming in from a sunny street into a dim hallway. And he was running. And we collided. And then he ran out. I just have no idea what he looked like.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s it. Now we go call cops.”

“Can’t we call from here?”

“I don’t want to touch that receiver. You’re supposed to leave things as close to what they were as is possible. Sometimes it helps. Come on.”

On the way to a phone booth, I asked her for a favor. I asked her to tell her story exactly as she told it to me, but to leave out one thing. Nickie Darrow. Not to mention him. That’s all. Nothing else. Just omit Nickie Darrow.

“Why?” she said.

“It’s a personal thing, my little Greek philosopher. I’ve been trying to get through to him, and this gives me a wedge. Don’t worry. You won’t be breaking any law, and if there’s any trouble, I’ll take full responsibility.”

She was hesitant but she was cooperative. “All right, if you say so, Peter.”

“I say so.”

I called down to Headquarters and then we went back to the apartment and pretty soon there were cops, lots of cops, tons of cops, and they were in the charge of Detective-lieutenant Louis Parker, and Parker was in a gruff mood. “Never fails, does it? How come whenever there’s a corpse... there’s you?”

“It’s mixed up with the other thing, Lieutenant?”

“What other thing?”

“The Abner Reed snatch.”

“You kiddin’?”

You straighten him out on current events, from the phone call in your office from Sandra Mantell to right now (omitting friend Darrow) and now his mood is ameliorated and he’s on your side again. “Go home, Pete. Go home and stay home.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a good kid.”

“That’s why you want me to go home?”

“Listen. For once will you listen? There’s nothing you can do here, and there may be a lot I can do. But I’ll come up and see you, Pete, as soon as I can get loose from all of this. You’ve played ball with me — I’ll play ball with you. I’ll come up and see you and we’ll kick it around some more. Okay?”

“About Trina Greco, Lieutenant.”

“Yes?”

“She’s a friend of mine.”

“So?”

“Treat her nice.”

“Okay. She’s a friend of yours. I’ll treat her nice. Now, will you please go home?”

So you go home. You’re a good little boy and you’ve listened to Papa. You sit around like an old lady with lumbago... but you sit. You do some home cooking, and some home eating, and some home drinking... but you sit. You get sick and tired of sitting... but you sit. Day melts into night, and night is getting wearisome, and you’re still sitting. Finally, at twelve-thirty in the morning, Parker shows up, perspired and tired-looking.

“Hi,” he said. “How you doing?”

“Been sitting. Been sitting real good. How you doing?”

“Pretty bad.”

I went to the liquor cabinet. “A bit of the potables, Lieutenant?”

“Thanks. I can use a drink.”

He used a couple.

I said, “Let’s get down to cases, Lieutenant.”

“That’s my boy. Always in there pitching.”

“Cases, Lieutenant.”

“Well, sir, that gun on the floor was the murder gun. And we were able to garner a gorgeous set of fingerprints off it. Only prints on it, as a matter of fact. Gun’s an old one. Couldn’t do any tracing from the serial number. Dead end on that phase.”

“How much luck do you want, pal? Gorgeous fingerprints, you said.”

“There’s a catch.”

“As my Greek philosopher would say — isn’t there always?”

“Who’s your Greek philosopher?”

“Skip it. Where’s the catch?”

“Gorgeous set of prints, but they match nothing we’ve got on file. And don’t match anything out of Washington either. Where’s that leave us?”

“Way out in left field on a rainy day, and there is no ball game.”

“Very aptly put, me lad. I’ll have another drink.”

I served him another drink. I said, “You check her friends?”

“I’ve got forty men working on this. We’ve checked everybody that’s ever had the remotest connection with her. No prints fit the prints on that gun.”

“You couldn’t know everybody... that had the remotest connection.”

“We’re only human, pal. We’ve run down every single possible lead, and we’re no place. We’ve got fingerprints, but they match nothing. Stinks pretty good, eh, pal?”

My conscience reared up on its hind legs and pawed at me. Nickie Darrow was a careful guy and he rarely left traces of his friendships. Casually I said, “You guys got Nickie Darrow’s prints on file?”

“Nickie Darrow? He got any connection with this?”

“I’m not saying he has, Lieutenant. Let’s say I got a personal hate for the guy, and I’m trying to implicate him. All I’m asking — have you got his prints on file?”

“You bet we have.”

“Then routine would have put him on the spot if the prints on the gun were his.”

“Definitely.”

“Okay, Lieutenant. Don’t glare at me like that. You get anything special on that Sandra Mantell?”

“Nothing, except she was a looker with a real upholstered torso. Knew a lot of the best people, and a lot of the worst. A burlesque dancer, and a top-notcher. Used to live in New York, then moved to Jersey when she got work permanent in Union City. Played in New York though, and played plenty. There’s a lot we don’t know about her, that’s for sure, and there’s a lot of people that knew her that we don’t know a thing about.” He stood up and sighed. “But we keep plugging. We’re cops and we keep plugging. We’re not brilliant private eyes that sneak around, and fast-talk all the girls, and slug a few people, and come up with all the right answers. We’re only cops, and we plug, and a good deal of the time we solve our cases. Without fanfare, and without getting paid by publishers and TV sponsors to tell our stories. Good night, sonny. I’m tired. I’m going to sleep. You ought to do the same.”

You close the door behind him and you hit the horn. You dial the Club Trippa, and you ask for Nick Darrow, and they ask who’s calling, and you tell them, and you get the same old answer: not in. This time you leave a message. You say that Sandra Mantell has been murdered, and that you’ve been investigating it, and that you left out the name of Nickie Darrow when you made your report to the police. You say you’ll be home the rest of the night and you give them your phone number. Then you hang up and make yourself some frozen blintzes out of the freezer, with sugar and sour cream, a dish you learned from one of Lindy’s chefs, and you’re in the midst of enjoying it, when the phone tinkles, and guess who...?

Nickie Darrow’s voice, over the phone, was smoother than my sour cream. “How are you, Pete? Where you been keeping yourself? My club too lowdown for a high-hat guy like yourself?”